Infotech Arena

Sunday, August 12, 2018

Tesla may recruit an unusual ally in its effort to become a private company and take more control over its fate. A Bloomberg source has claimed that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund is in talks that could make it a "significant investor" in Tesla as part of the electric car company's plan to go private. The funding arm has already amassed a five percent stake in Tesla, but this suggests it would grab a larger slice if the plan went forward.

You might not have to splurge on a Pixelbook if you're pining after a Chromebook with Windows 10 support. XDA-Developers has learned through source code that Campfire, the feature that would let Chrome OS dual-boot Windows 10, would be available in multiple "variants" -- that is, on more than one Chrome OS device. This wouldn't mean that any and all Google-powered PCs would have the option. Hardware makers would have to verify that Windows worked properly, and it'd be out of the question for the many Chrome machines that only have a small amount of flash storage. Recent code comments suggest you'd need at least 40GB of space, and many Chromebooks have 32GB or less.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

With that latest Windows update due out tomorrow, you'd better believe the smaller Windows tablets are about to start pouring in. Now that we've heard from Dell, Lenovo is also getting in the game: it just debuted the Miix2, its first 8-inch Windows 8.1 tab. Like pretty much every other 8-incher that's about to be announced, it runs on one of Intel's new quad-core Bay Trail processors, rocks a 1,200 x 800 display, and comes with Microsoft Office installed.

If you have to keep using Windows XP for the next couple of years, you won't necessarily be stuck using an outdated web browser. Google now says that Chrome will get XP-compatible updates until "at least" April 2015, one year after Microsoft drops support for its aging OS. The extension should minimize the threat of browser-based exploits for those who can't transition to newer platforms all that quickly. While an OS upgrade would ultimately be the safest move for many users, it's good to see Google offering some love to older PCs.

On August 9, Samsung took a legal blow as the ITC ruled it had violated two of Apple’s patents, something leading to an import ban against certain products. Though Apple had successfully had an ITC product ban overturned by the Obama administration, Samsung wasn’t so lucky with its own request, and now Apple is seeking a wider import ban in the US.

This week the folks at Rovio have unleashed word of their next gaming effort in Angry Birds Go! This game will – as suspected – work with the “Kart” universe of racing, doing so for Android and iOS on December 11th, 2013. This game will take on what Nintendo refuses to move forward with in creating a full-powered top-notch kart-based racing game for mobile devices.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

If you're active on Twitter, you're familiar with the following scenario: someone you follow sends you a DM, but your efforts to reply are stymied by their stubborn insistence not to follow back (which we're sure is entirely their loss). But the old Twitter ways are changing; now, users can opt-in to receive messages from any ol' follower without the need to follow back.

Amazon and HTC are partnering on the rumored “Kindle smartphone”, a new report suggests, with the struggling phone manufacturer in talks around building as many as three handsets for the retail behemoth. Of the trio of unnamed devices, one is “at an advanced stage of development” – potential the device believed to be codenamed “Smith” – the FT [registration required] reports, though is still unlikely to launch until 2014 assuming Amazon sticks with its current roadmap.

That Square Cash service that was unveiled as invite-only about five months ago? Well, it's officially open to the public. As of now, anyone can send cold hard cash to anyone else just with a regular ol' email address -- well, an address in the US, anyway. To send money, simply send an email to the recipient with "cash@square.com" in the CC field and the dollar amount in the subject line.

The Q3 earnings report for Yahoo is in, and even with earnings down 91 percent year over year (due to an infusion of cash last year when it sold part of its share in Alibaba Group) it held few surprises. Revenue dropped 1 percent to $1.08 billion, while ad sales also dropped slightly, down 7 percent for Q3 last year.

We hope you weren't dead set on buying devices using Intel's Broadwell processors, as the company has delayed production of the 14-nanometer CPU line to early 2014. Fixes for early manufacturing defects didn't work as well as expected, CEO Brian Krzanich says, limiting Intel's ability to produce enough functioning chips.

The setback shouldn't affect Skylake, Broadwell's successor. Still, it's not good news for a semiconductor firm that's scrounging for good news in an unforgiving PC market.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

If you run iTunes on multiple devices, chances are you've had trouble keeping your libraries in sync. Maybe you've even tried Dropbox but ran into syncing conflicts. Here's how to sync iTunes with Dropbox problem-free, on Windows or Mac.

LifeHack has talked before about the things every computer user should know how to do, but we geeks are special: we want to go above and beyond, to explore every nook and cranny of our system and make everything easier. Here are ten ways to do just that.

Dropbox is an awesome service. You can back your files up to the cloud, sync them between computers, and share them with your friends. That's not all it can do, though. Here are our top 10 favorite clever uses for our favorite file syncing program.

Note: If you don't use Dropbox, don't fret—you can do most of these things with any file syncer you want, whether it's SkyDrive, Google Drive, Cubby, or something else.